Cerritos College New Central Plant Equipment - Completed

The campus is currently served by six centrifugal chillers ranging in size from 150 to 225 tons, several smaller reciprocating chillers or DX systems, and numerous small packaged rooftop units. Some of the centrifugals had R-11 refrigerant so were scheduled for replacement. Most equipment, including two fairly new air cooled chillers, was very energy inefficient. This helped to make the central plant attractive.

Nevertheless, despite an attractive simple payback of 8.8 years, the first cost of the central plant was more than the college wanted to spend. During this period, the college became aware of the CCC/IOU Energy Partnership opportunities. Southern California Edison worked with S&K Engineers and helped the college to save some money.

The Study was accepted and the Chilled Water Central Plant project went into design (and is currently under construction). S&K Engineers presented a new concept to Cerritos College to achieve additional savings and other benefits. The concept is that of providing a pre-fabricated central plant, sometimes referred to as a “chiller in a box”. By preparing performance specifications and working with the major suppliers of this type of equipment, a central plant equipment has been purchased. The successful supplier is the Trane Company. The central plant is fabricated by TAS in Houston. Delivery to Cerritos College is scheduled for January 2008.

The equipment will consist of three centrifugal chillers, six cooling towers, and all auxiliary equipment such as pumps, air separator, water filter and treatment, valves, DDC controls, etc. The total capacity is 3000 tons. Initially there will be 700 tons served as replacement of old and inefficient existing equipment. By December 2008 it is anticipated this will be increased to over 1400 tons. As new buildings are built, they will be served by the central plant and existing buildings will be converted to chilled water as they come up for remodeling.

The resulting central plant is economical, compact, extremely energy efficient, built in a shorter time frame than a traditional building, provides a single source of responsibility, and minimizes field problems.